Questions tagged [teaching]
This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
290
questions
4
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What to do in recitation?
Forgive me if this is not the right place to ask pedagogical questions, but it seemed the most appropriate.
I am a TA for a programming/CS course. This is my first time teaching recitation and I'm ...
- 140
157
votes
14
answers
26k
views
Teaching a class likely meant to inflate the GPA of student athletes
Premise
My department recently finalized the faculty teaching assignments for the Fall 2019 semester (starts at the end of August 2019). As these assignments were being discussed a few weeks ago, my ...
- 19k
148
votes
12
answers
59k
views
How to deal with a very weak student?
I am teaching an honors class for seniors (at a very good university, top 5 in my field). Most students are fantastic. They are very interested, they often surprise me with insights in class, and the ...
- 6,778
125
votes
18
answers
128k
views
Knowing that most students submit assignments right around the deadline, is it advisable not to set deadline that is very late at night?
Like many on this site, I use a Moodle-type online Content Management System to give assignments to my students, and receive the finished work for grading. This is in a traditional context where the ...
- 1,900
114
votes
18
answers
41k
views
How to approach a student with bad hygiene?
I teach engineering at a community college in the US. I currently have a student with very poor hygiene. He stinks pretty badly, has obviously greasy hair, doesn’t change his clothes frequently, and I ...
- 1,140
105
votes
8
answers
16k
views
Why are high pass rates for courses considered acceptable in the US?
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist the temptation to use this somewhat provoking title.)
This recent question motivated me to finally ask the following, somewhat dual, question which I've been wondering ...
- 7,885
96
votes
18
answers
26k
views
How to quiet noisy undergrads students during lecture
I am teaching a class of about 100 undergraduates.
The class meets for a three-hour block every week
in a lecture hall which seats about 120.
We have about 2-3 breaks every lecture,
to give students ...
- 19.5k
68
votes
13
answers
27k
views
Our instructor threw together freely available YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles instead of lectures. What should I do?
I'm currently attending university online (at a notable public institution, not a crappy school—I feel compelled to mention this because one typically expects quality from good institutions). ...
anon
62
votes
9
answers
14k
views
Misguided use of offensive figures in student presentations
I recently had an experience while overseeing student presentations in a course I am teaching. While the concrete situation could be handled without much ado due to some special circumstances, I ...
- 13.5k
60
votes
11
answers
13k
views
Handling plagiarism as a TA
To give some background, I am a TA at UCLA for a lab class. They submit their assignments to TurnItIn, which you may know highlights any text pulled from another place.
I made it clear that they are ...
- 591
57
votes
21
answers
40k
views
Is "no late work" a common policy?
When I wrote my syllabus for this term, I added the line "Late work will not be accepted." In the past, I just took off a large percentage of the grade per day, but I became tired of the added work of ...
- 12.5k
54
votes
14
answers
25k
views
How to sign your email to students, so to avoid their immature behavior?
Or how would you like to be addressed?
As a graduate TA, I went by my first name. But I thought that some students were becoming too friendly. They took things for granted (for example, asking for a ...
- 1,073
50
votes
11
answers
9k
views
How do professors and lecturers learn to teach?
I am a PhD student in the field of education and I enjoy reading SE questions to stimulate my mind when I need a break. I find academia to be one of my most frequently visited sites.
When reading ...
- 810
47
votes
15
answers
12k
views
How should an graduate student with Aspergers syndrome prepare for a teaching career?
I am an "abnormal" graduate student in the sense I had been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome by a professional psychiatrist when I was in college. In college days I mostly study mathematics on my own ...
- 913
45
votes
6
answers
37k
views
What should I do if I don't know the answer to a question posed by a student?
If I am the TA for a class, what should I do if a student asks me a question which I can't answer? While "tell the truth and say you don't know" is one approach, are there other options?
- 3,399
42
votes
12
answers
6k
views
What is the benefit of writing lecture notes for an introductory course vs using a textbook?
Background: I am a junior university staff member, and I will teach an introductory course in linear algebra for the first time in a few months.
I see that many teachers devote time to writing ...
- 47.1k
41
votes
13
answers
15k
views
Appropriate/smart ways to decline students' requests of "begging for better grades" at the end of the semester without being too hurtful
Normally at the end of semester, there are always a couple of students begging for better grades. Let me just list a few sample cases:
Case 1: I worked really hard during the semester. I attended all ...
- 4,248
39
votes
7
answers
9k
views
What to do about students who ask for help too often?
For my writing courses, about 5% of students will come to me prior to deadlines asking for help with their paper. I see no problem advising students, as I often similarly came for help when I was an ...
- 12.5k
37
votes
23
answers
16k
views
Is it unreasonable to change the rules of a quiz/exam one week in advance?
I am the course leader for an undergraduate course.
We have two quizzes each semester:
one around the middle of the semester, and one at the end.
For the first quiz,
students were allowed to bring a ...
- 19.5k
36
votes
12
answers
32k
views
How to deal with students who submit their homework as an attachment to a completely blank e-mail?
I am responsible for the exercises for a graduate course (which happens to contain only international students). The students submit their solutions via email and all of them send a normal email: ...
- 888
36
votes
8
answers
4k
views
Undergraduate not doing homework (case method)
I've recently started teaching undergraduate students using the case method (management subjects). However, I'm finding that most of the students simply don't do the reading at home. Even though I (so ...
- 23.2k
36
votes
14
answers
13k
views
Should I ban electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops) from a course?
TL;DR
In the coming semester,
I will be teaching a "seminar" type course with around 30 students.
I would like to disallow students in the course
to use any electronic devices (smartphones, tablets ...
- 19.5k
36
votes
8
answers
6k
views
The challenge large language models (LLMs) pose to programming-based homework
I teach courses in which, as homework, students implement data analysis algorithms from scratch, apply them to real and simulated data, and then reflect on the results.
As a student in such courses, I ...
35
votes
11
answers
30k
views
Is the death of a girlfriend's father a reasonable excuse for a student to miss a class?
I just received an email from an undergrad student in a course that I am teaching.
The student informed me that his girlfriend's father passed away,
and so he will be unable to attend my class because
...
- 19.5k
34
votes
8
answers
6k
views
How to deal with uninterested students during an optional exercise session?
Last week I taught my first exercise session. I am a PhD student so the kind of classes that I will teach are exercise sessions about what the Professor explained in the theory class. They essentially ...
user21043
31
votes
8
answers
7k
views
How much information should I include in my lecture slides?
I will soon be teaching my first class as an assistant professor.
The class is made up of 130 undergraduate students,
most of whom are in their first year.
The class in a introductory course,
so I ...
- 19.5k
30
votes
10
answers
43k
views
What is a nice phrase to use instead of "ladies and gentlemen" to be more inclusive? [closed]
I really like to use the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" while teaching. The reason is not necessarily to be formal, but to gather the attention to a particular point.
For instance, I'd ...
- 12.3k
29
votes
8
answers
32k
views
How to create PDF of slides with audio?
When creating online learning materials, I like the idea of sharing slideshows with audio commentary for each slide. I know it is possible to do this with PowerPoint (e.g., see this MS Office ...
- 20.4k
27
votes
8
answers
6k
views
What is the best way to keep your students from getting out of control?
I am new to teaching. Recently I was given the opportunity to teach at my own university (I am currently doing an MPhil from my university).
If a teacher fails to control his students once, he wouldn'...
- 1,814
26
votes
4
answers
8k
views
How do you deal with trolling students?
This is inspired by the other question about dealing with stupid questions. The popular answers all seemed to assume that the student really wants to hear an answer. While this is a reasonable ...
- 4,121
23
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Professor wants to expropriate submitted code for commercial use
I'm a Computer Science graduate student enrolled in a US University. In a class I'm currently taking, the professor has just given us a strange assignment. The professor works full-time in industry ...
- 333
22
votes
11
answers
3k
views
How to reduce student plagiarism?
During the last term, I recorded at least 50 cases of student plagiarism. The most common cases were students copying and pasting paragraphs verbatim from various Web sites, assembling them together, ...
- 12.5k
22
votes
5
answers
4k
views
Should I stay in PhD program I dislike to have a shot at liberal arts teaching?
TL;DR: I'm a pure math graduate student who doesn't like research mathematics. Should I continue and get the PhD because I suspect I might like teaching at a 4-year liberal arts college?
I am ...
- 823
22
votes
5
answers
4k
views
Is it acceptable to use the word "trivial" in lecture?
Suppose you are introducing a new concept, and you start with (what you think is) a toy example. Is it okay to refer to your example as a "trivial problem?"
Does this depend on the field and/or ...
- 5,913
22
votes
7
answers
14k
views
Handwritten presentation slides?
Since it takes a lot of time to type presentations out using Beamer, PowerPoint, etc. (I need lots of equations) I have been thinking of shifting to handwritten slides (example).
Does anyone here ...
- 323
22
votes
8
answers
11k
views
How to deal with student putting their (home)work on github
While using github for source code is generally something I love to encourage, if a student puts their (computer science) homework there, it's generally easy for others to find and copy - which ...
- 1,086
20
votes
6
answers
3k
views
How to make group work work?
Occasionally I have some material to cover that is best presented in the form of take-home group projects.
Some student groups manage to find a way to coordinate their work well and to complete the ...
- 12.5k
19
votes
6
answers
4k
views
What is the best way to solicit teaching feedback from students (before the class is over)?
I sent my students a feedback form (I'm a TA) and I got three responses. While they were helpful and informative responses, I am not sure how to interpret them, because there are only three of them ...
- 5,913
19
votes
8
answers
46k
views
How many class room hours does the typical university teacher teach per week?
I am wondering, for full time university teachers (not those who also have research responsibilities), what is generally the number of hours per week that they teach? I currently teach 20 hours per ...
- 23.2k
16
votes
1
answer
998
views
Ethics of conducting research on a class
I'm a repeat Teaching Assistant in a fairly large (100-200 students/semester) core, required CS course at a large, private US research university. I'm very interested in researching what factors ...
- 529
16
votes
8
answers
7k
views
Made a joke in poor taste without thinking in front of students. Is there anything I can do to salvage myself?
I am currently a full-time instructor at a SLAC and am teaching a two intro sections and a sports-psychology section. In my sports-psychology class today, I noticed that one of the emergency windows ...
- 1
16
votes
5
answers
10k
views
How many "office hours" are common (or standard) for full-time lecturers?
In situations where one teaches purely undergraduate students (20 hours per week, 16 weeks per semester, 2 semesters per year) how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year, are people normally ...
- 23.2k
15
votes
2
answers
3k
views
How to improve myself as a recitation (discussion,lab,tutorial) teacher?
This question is related to How to improve myself as a lecturer?. However, being a PhD student, my main teaching obligation is leading recitations, i.e. sessions for groups of ~20 students that take ...
- 296
15
votes
4
answers
7k
views
Good questions for post-class survey
In order to get feedback more quickly, I've seen some teachers run a quick (certainly no more than 5 minutes), entirely optional, anonymous survey for students at the end of each of each class, ...
- 12.9k
14
votes
4
answers
881
views
Being the right kind of demanding as a college instructor
As part of my work as a graduate student in maths I currently teach a basic second semester calculus course. It seems like every semester I teach, one or two students want some sort of special ...
- 19k
13
votes
3
answers
2k
views
What are some good ways to lead a discussion session for a TA in a graduate-level STEM class?
I'm a TA for a class on graduate-level Digital Signal Processing, and one of my responsibilities is to lead a discussion session. It's a 50-minute session that happens once a week, and the professor ...
user42273
12
votes
2
answers
589
views
What is the purpose of peer evaluation of teaching?
At my UK university all new teaching staff, as part of the requirements to fulfil the requirements for a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE), have their teaching observed by a member ...
- 104k
11
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Is it possible to get an assistant professor position that does not require doing research?
I know the Lecturer position is a purely teaching role (and can even be obtained with just a Master's degree). However, is the Assistant Professor role necessarily tied with research (or can it also ...
- 219
10
votes
2
answers
3k
views
How are instructors compensated for teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?
This question prompted me to wonder what compensation comes with teaching a MOOC. Most of these seem to be sponsored by universities, but my university doesn't offer them and neither did my PhD ...
- 4,064
8
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Can a professor teach mathematics and computer science?
I assume this is nearly impossible in a university with separate math and computer-science departments, due to the way funding works (correct me if I'm wrong). However, I've heard that some small ...
- 487